Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Lectionary resources online

I'm sorry I had to discontinue our experiment in weekly commentaries from Christian classics for the Sunday lectionary readings: it was too labor-intensive for one person, though it was fun while it lasted! But please feel free to subscribe to Weekly Seeds at i.UCC.org — the online community for seekers and local church members sponsored by the United Church of Christ. Weekly Seeds delivers a comment on the Sunday readings. And feel free to join our weekly online lectionary-based Bible study in our "Opening the Bible" forum. Both are linked from the front page of that site.

[N]ot only is there a God; he is near. He will neither forget for forsake you. Only be gentle to all, and let God care for you; leave it to him how he is to support and protect you. Has he given you Christ the eternal treasure?... With him is much more than anyone can take from you.... [Y]ou possess in Christ more than is represented in all this world's goods. On this subject the psalmist says (Ps. 55:22): "Cast your burden upon the Lord, and he will sustain you," and Peter (I Pet. 5:7), "Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you." And Christ in the sixth chapter of Matthew points us to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. The thought of these passages is the same as the Lord is near.

Now follows, Do not worry about anything.

Take no thought for yourselves. Let God care for you. The one you now acknowledge is able to provide for you.... So let the whole world grasp, and deal unrighteously: you shall have enough. You shall not die of hunger or cold unless someone shall have deprived you of the God who cares for you. But who shall take him from you? How can you lose him unless you yourself let him go? We have a Father and Protector who holds in his hands all things, even those who, with all their possessions, would rob or injure us. Our duty is to rejoice always in God and be gentle toward all.... It should be our anxiety not to be anxious, to rejoice in God alone and to be kind to everyone.

Rejoice in the Lord always. Let this be your strength and stability: to rejoice in the Lord, and that, too, not just for a moment but so that your joy in him may be lasting. For unquestionably it differs from the joy of the world in this respect—that we know from experience that the joy of the world is deceptive, frail and fading, and Christ even pronounces it to be accursed (Luke 6:25). Hence, that only is a settled joy in God which is such as is never taken away from us.

Let your gentleness be known to everyone. This may be explained in two ways. We may understand [Paul] as bidding [the Philippians] to give up their right rather than that anyone should have occasion to complain of their sharpness or severity: "Let all that have to deal with you have experience of your equity and humanity." In this way to know will mean to experience. Or we may understand him as exhorting them to endure all things with equanimity. This latter meaning I rather prefer, for to epieikes is a term that is made use of by the Greeks themselves to denote moderation of spirit—when we are not easily moved by injuries, when we are not easily annoyed by adversity, but retain equanimity of temper. In accordance with this, Cicero makes use of the following expression: "My mind is tranquil, which takes everything in good part." Such equanimity—which is as it were the mother of patience—he requires here on the part of the Philippians, and, indeed, such as will manifest itself to all, according as occasion will require, by producing its proper effects.

The Lord is at hand. Here we have an anticipation by which [Paul] obviates an objection that might be brought forward. For carnal sense rises in opposition to the foregoing statement. For as the rage of the wicked is the more inflamed in proportion to our gentleness, and the more they see us prepared for enduring, are the more emboldened to inflict injuries, we are with difficulty induced to possess our souls in patience (Luke 21:19). Hence those proverbs: "We must howl when among wolves" [and] "those who act like sheep will quickly be devoured by wolves." Hence we conclude that the ferocity of the wicked must be repressed by corresponding violence, that they may not insult us with impunity.

To such considerations Paul here opposes confidence in divine providence. He replies, I say, that the Lord is near, that his power can overcome their audacity, that his goodness can conquer their malice. He promises that he will aid us, provided we obey his commandment. Now, who would not rather be protected by the hand of God alone than have all the resources of the world at his command? Here we have a most beautiful sentiment, from which we learn, in the first place, that ignorance of the providence of God is the cause of all impatience, and that this is the reason why we are so quickly, and on trivial accounts, thrown into confusion, and often, too, become disheartened because we do not recognise the fact that the Lord cares for us. On the other hand, we learn that this is the only remedy for quieting our minds—when we repose unreservedly in his providential care, knowing that we are not exposed either to the rashness of fortune or to the caprice of the wicked but are under the regulation of God's fatherly care. To put it simply, when you are in possession of this truth, that God is present with you, you have what you may rest upon with security.

I am not to belittle, insult, hate, or kill my neighbor—not by my thoughts, my words, my look or gesture,and certainly not by actual deeds—and I am not to be party to this in others;rather, I am to put away all desire for revenge.

I am not to harm or recklessly endanger myself either....

Does this commandment refer only to killing?

By forbidding murder God teaches usthat he hates the root of murder:envy, hatred, anger, vindictiveness.In God's sight all such are murder.

Is it enough then that we do not kill our neighbor in any such way?

No. By condemning envy, hatred, and angerGod tells usto love our neighbors as ourselves,to be patient, peace-loving, gentle,merciful, and friendly to them,to protect them from harm as much as we can,and to do good even to our enemies.

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Proper 22, Year A, October 2

Lectionary and Tradition is a resource for sermon preparation, Bible study and lectio divina. This Sunday, John Calvin and Karl Barth on running the race (Phil. 3:12-14). Also, the Heidelberg Catechism on being Christ's own (Phil. 3:12).

[Paul] compares our life to a race-course, the limits of which God has marked out to us for running in. For as it would profit the runner nothing to have left the starting-point, unless he went forward to the goal, so we must also pursue the course of our calling until death, and must not cease until we have obtained what we seek.

Further, as the way is marked out to the runner, that he may not fatigue himself to no purpose by wandering in this direction or in that, so there is also a goal set before us towards which we ought to direct our course undeviatingly. And God does not permit us to wander about heedlessly.

Third, as the runner needs to be free from entanglement and not stop his course on account of any impediment, but must continue his course, surmounting every obstacle, so we must take heed that we do not apply our mind or heart to anything that may divert our attention but must, on the contrary, make it our endeavor that, free from every distraction, we may apply the whole bent of our mind exclusively to God's calling.

[Editor's summary: What happens to those who pray seriously, "thy kingdom come," and who are "running the race" towards this kingdom?]

In the power of Jesus Christ who rose again and lives for them too, and as the work of the Holy Spirit who enlightens and impels them, there takes place and has already come about in their life and history that turning of 180 degrees from the appearance of the Lord that has taken place already to that which is awaited in the future, from the kingdom of God that has already drawn near to that which is still to come in its final, universal, and definitive revelation. Praying ["thy kingdom come"] bravely means following this movement and turning, having no other choice but to look ahead and also to live and think and speak and act ahead, to run from the beginning, the history of Jesus Christ first revealed in his resurrection, to the goal, its final manifestation, the coming kingdom of God—to run toward this with all one's soul and all one's powers like one who is running a race, as Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 9:24ff and Philippians 3:12ff. The heart of the Christian ethos is that those who are freed and summoned to pray "thy kingdom come" are also freed and summoned to use their freedom to obey the command that is given therewith and to live for their part with a view to the coming kingdom.

The coming of the kingdom of God is the appearing of God's righteousness on a new earth and under a new heaven [cf. Isa. 65:17; 2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1]. It is the setting up of his ordering of human life and life together, of his order of life, right, freedom, peace, and joy which is good for man as his creature, covenant partner, and child, which saves and keeps him. In Jesus Christ and the power of his Spirit this order is fully present already to those who know and love him. It is also fully revealed in him. In its majesty, as the grace and benefit addressed to all in him, but also as the judgment executed on all human unrighteousness and disorder, it is their hope, but it is not yet revealed even to them. Its revelation in this majesty—Jesus Christ as the sun of righteousness [Mal. 4:2], as the sun of grace which lightens all people, Christians and non-Christians, good and bad, which also illumines and enlightens them—is the new coming of the kingdom of God that is still awaited. Christians live toward this, toward its day, as they live from its first coming. To bring in this day, to cause it to dawn, to reveal God's righteousness in its majesty, cannot be the affair of any person, and therefore it cannot be the affair of the Christian, for example, through the lights entrusted to him, just as the coming into being of light on the first day of creation was not the work of the creature but solely that of its Creator, and just as the first day of Jesus Christ, the coming of the kingdom in his history and in the Easter event, was not initiated by humans, not even by God's chosen Israel among them, nor by the faith of the disciples, but solely by the free mercy of God.

Nevertheless, for those who in the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, enlightened by the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son, look ahead from that beginning to this end, this cannot possibly mean that they are commanded or even permitted to be idle in the meantime; to acquiesce for the time being in human unrighteousness and disorder and their consequences, in the mortal imperiling of life, freedom, peace, and joy on earth under the lordship of the lordless powers; so far as possible to adjust themselves during the interim to the status quo; to establish themselves on this; and perhaps even with gloomy skeptical speculation to find comfort in the thought that until God's final and decisive intervention, the course of events will necessarily be not only as bad as previously but increasingly worse. No, they wait and hasten toward the dawn of God's day, the appearing of his righteousness, the parousia of Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 3:12). They not only wait but also hasten. They wait by hastening. Their waiting takes place in the hastening. Aiming at God's kingdom, established on its coming and not on the status quo, they do not just look toward it but run toward it as fast as their feet will carry them. This is inevitable if in their hearts and on their lips the petition "thy kingdom come" is not an indolent and despondent prayer but one that is zealous and brave.

But what has to happen when the prayer is prayed? What does running mean? What is the orientation and direction of Christian life and thought and word and work that corresponds to what is requested? The answer is—and along the lines that we have followed thus far no other answer is possible—Fiat iustitia ["do justice"]. That is to say, Christians are claimed for action in the effort and struggle for human righteousness. At issue is human, not divine righteousness. That the latter should come, intervene, assert itself, reign, and triumph can never be the affair of any human action. Those who know the reality of the kingdom, Christians, can never have anything to do with the arrogant and foolhardy enterprise of trying to bring in and build up by human hands a religious, cultic, moral, or political kingdom of God on earth. God's righteousness is the affair of God's own act, which has already been accomplished and is still awaited. God's righteousness took place in the history of Jesus Christ, and it will take place again, comprehensively and definitively, in his final manifestation. The time between that beginning and that end, our time as the time of the presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit, is for Christians the space for gratitude, hope, and prayer, and also the time of responsibility for the occurrence of human righteousness. They have to be concerned about the doing of this righteousness. On no pretext can they escape responsibility for it: not on that of the gratitude and hope with which they look to God and wait for his action; not on that of their prayer for the coming of his kingdom. For if they are really grateful and really hope, if their prayer is a brave prayer, then they are claimed for a corresponding inner and outer action which is also brave. If they draw back here, or even want to, then there is serious reason to ask whether and how far their gratitude, hope, and prayer are to be taken seriously.

That I am not my own,but belong—body and soul,in life and in death—to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.He also watches over me in such a waythat not a hair can fall from my headwithout the will of my Father in heaven:in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

Because I belong to him,Christ, by his Holy Spirit,assures me of eternal lifeand makes me wholeheartedly willing and readyfrom now on to live for him.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Proper 21, Year A, September 25

Lectionary and Tradition is a resource for sermon preparation, Bible study and lectio divina. This Sunday, John Calvin on "being of one mind" in Christ (Phil. 2:1). Also, Dietrich Bonhoeffer on community through Christ and the Evangelical Catechism on the communion of saints.

[The communion of the church] is held together by two bonds: agreement in sound doctrine and brotherly love.... But it must also be noted that this conjunction of love so depends upon unity of faith that it ought to be its beginning, end, and, in fine, its sole rule. Let us therefore remember that whenever church unity is commended to us, this is required: that while our minds agree in Christ, our wills should also be joined with mutual benevolence in Christ. Paul, therefore, while urging us to it, takes it as his foundation that "there is ... one God, one faith, and one baptism" [Eph. 4:5]. Indeed, wherever Paul teaches us to feel the same and will the same, he immediately adds, "in Christ" [Phil. 2:1,5] or "according to Christ" [Rom. 15:5]. He means that apart from the Lord's Word there is not an agreement of believers but a faction of wicked men.

Cyprian, also following Paul, derives the source of concord of the entire church from Christ's headship alone. Afterward he adds: "The church is one, which is spread abroad far and wide into a multitude by an increase of fruitfulness. As there are many rays of the sun but one light, and many branches of a tree but one strong trunk grounded in its tenacious root, and since from one spring flow many streams, although a goodly number seem outpoured from their bounty and superabundance, still, at the source unity abides. Take a ray from the body of the sun; its unity undergoes no division. Break a branch from a tree; the severed branch cannot sprout. Cut off a stream from its source; cut off, it dries up. So also the church, bathed in the light of the Lord, extends over the whole earth: yet there is one light diffused everywhere." Nothing more fitting could be said to express this indivisible connection which all members of Christ have with one another. We see how he continually calls us back to the Head himself. Accordingly, Cyprian declares that heresies and schisms arise because men return not to the Source of truth, seek not the Head, keep not the teaching of the Heavenly Master.

Jesus Christ stands between the lover and the others he loves. I do not know in advance what love of others means on the basis of the general idea of love that grows out of my human desires—all this may rather be hatred and an insidious kind of selfishness in the eyes of Christ. What love is, only Christ tells in his Word. Contrary to all my own opinions and convictions, Jesus Christ will tell me what love toward the brethren really is. Therefore, spiritual love is bound solely to the Word of Jesus Christ. Where Christ bids me to maintain fellowship for the sake of love, I will maintain it. Where his truth enjoins me to dissolve a fellowship for love's sake, there I will dissolve it, despite all the protests of my human love. Because spiritual love does not desire but rather serves, it loves an enemy as a brother. It originates neither in the brother nor in the enemy but in Christ and his Word. Human love can never understand spiritual love, for spiritual love is from above; it is something completely strange, new, and incomprehensible to all earthly love.

Because Christ stands between me and others, I dare not desire direct fellowship with them. As only Christ can speak to me in such a way that I may be saved, so others, too, can be saved only by Christ himself. This means that I must release the other person from every attempt of mine to regulate, coerce, and dominate him with my love. The other person needs to retain his independence of me; to be loved for what he is, as one for whom Christ became human, died, and rose again, for whom Christ bought forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Because Christ has long since acted decisively for my brother, before I could begin to act, I must leave him his freedom to be Christ's; I must meet him only as the person that he already is in Christ's eyes. This is the meaning of the proposition that we can meet others only through the mediation of Christ. Human love constructs its own image of the other person, of what he is and what he should become. It takes the life of the other person into its own hands. Spiritual love recognizes the true image of the other person which he has received from Jesus Christ; the image that Jesus Christ himself embodied and would stamp upon all men.

Therefore, spiritual love proves itself in that everything it says and does commends Christ. It will not seek to move others by all too personal, direct influence, by impure interference in the life of another. It will not take pleasure in pious, human fervor and excitement. It will rather meet the other person with the clear Word of God and be ready to leave him alone with this Word for a long time, willing to release him again in order that Christ may deal with him. It will respect the line that has been drawn between him and us by Christ, and it will find full fellowship with him in the Christ who alone binds us together. Thus this spiritual love will speak to Christ about a brother more than to a brother about Christ. It knows that the most direct way to others is always through prayer to Christ and that love of others is wholly dependent upon the truth in Christ. It is out of love that John the disciple speaks: "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth" (III Jn. 4).

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Proper 20, Year A, September 18

Lectionary and Tradition is a resource for sermon preparation, Bible study and lectio divina. This Sunday, Karl Barth on standing on "solid ground" (Phil. 1:27). Also, the Heidelberg Catechism on "a community chosen for eternal life" and the Cambridge Platform on the unity of the church.

If God's claim on humanity is to be comprehended in a word, on the one side (predominantly in the Johannine writings) it is that we should abide, and on the other (predominantly in Paul) that we should stand.

The essential unity of the two conceptions is clear. Christians who are summoned to an "abiding" and a "standing" have a possibility in what is given them in Jesus Christ and through life with Him and in His Church; and the sum of all that is demanded of them is to make use of this possibility, or rather to let it realise itself.

The anxiety and fear forbidden to them are definitely excluded as this possible becomes actual. And the achievement of everything that is positively to be demanded of them is definitely guaranteed. At the place and on the ground on which they are set, it is already decided in advance what they will and will not do, and therefore what they will decide. In what they will do or not do, they will be obedient to the command of God, accepting His claim as right. The place of their abiding and the ground of their standing are identical. In both cases the reference is to the Lord, grace, faith, the apostolic proclamation. The concern, and the only concern, is that they should abide at this place and not leave it, that they stand on this ground and not stumble or stoop or fall or be brought down because they exchange it for another.

The seriousness and rigour, the absoluteness and radicalism of the demand are unmistakeable in both forms of the summons. Both pictorially and conceptually, the "standing" (as, for example, in the passages 1 Cor. 16:13f and Eph. 6:14f) undoubtedly demands an active determination, perseverance and restraint. And although at a first glance the "abiding" seems to be merely passive in contrast to a vagabond and vacillating caprice, it, too, impresses the hearer in such a way that there can be no mistaking the fact that it demands obedience and is therefore a command. The possibility presented with this place and ground is a law for those who are set in it. It is presented to them. It is to be realised in their existence. Its glory will necessarily be revealed in what they do and do not do. The fact that it is presented in this way makes them responsible that this should happen. But if it leaves them no choice but obedience, it is the choice of their obedience, in which they themselves are to realise it, they themselves are to be the active witnesses of its realisation.

Humility and love and selflessness and every other act of Christian virtue, the confession and the loyalty and perseverance of faith, the joyousness of hope—all these are for Christians a simple duty, a fulfilment of the injunction to let their light shine, not in any sense extraordinary, but the ordinary rule of life. Yet they are an obligation which they have to meet, a debt which they are required to pay. To allow to happen what at this place and on this ground has to happen with unavoidable necessity is something which can take place only through the Yes and No of their own will and determined act. There is repeated in this "abide" and "stand" the assault and disturbance of the wholly alien majesty of the new being which with their calling and baptism has burst in once and for all on their old man, and by which the latter has been once and for all vanquished and superseded.

But again it is the case that the disturbance and assault of this demand, its character as divine Law, is grounded in the fact that in content it speaks, no less than the warning against anxiety and fear, of a liberation which humans are to give themselves and in which they are to acquiesce. Those who are to "abide" are told openly that they are already in the native sphere to which they belong, in which they can breathe freely, in which everything they need comes flowing in to them from all sides, so that they can quietly renounce all seeking and hunting after other possibilities.

Experimenting with other possibilities is a necessity for those who have not yet found the reality of life. But those who are told to "abide" have found this reality.

To be "in Christ" is not one of the many stages on the way of life from which we may be ordered, and it may be good to look farther afield and to go on because they are only stages. It is not a standpoint which it is advisable to compare with other standpoints and then perhaps to exchange with them on account of the relativity of all standpoints.... If we want to press on and look farther, we shall only come back to this place if the search is successful. The only alternatives are the madness of a seeking for seeking's sake, or the misery of a seeking which can never lead to a finding. The obligation to abide at the place where we may abide—because that which is abiding is there—spares us not only all superfluous flights and detours, but also that madness and misery.

This is obviously an invitation and permission even as a command; a liberation as a commitment. It obviously engages us by freeing us in the depths of our being. It puts us under an obligation by giving us the freedom which we can only jeopardise and lose at once by trying to be disobedient; the freedom which can be won and kept only by obedience to this command.

And those who are to "stand" are evidently told that they are on ground on which they can stand—not on marsh or on a moving sidewalk, but on solid earth.

Is it possible that we prefer to stumble and stoop and fall and lie, or at best crawl? If we cannot prefer this, and if we are given the presupposition that we may atand, how can we fail to rejoice when we are told that we are to realise this presupposition and therefore to stand ? Falling and lying have a fatal similarity to sickness and death. For this reason we must beware of that favourite word of philosophers and humanists—die Lage (the lie of things). Strictly speaking, it ought to be applied to human relationships and conditions only sensu malo, only when there is a desire expressly to characterise them as fatal, as a suspicious "lying around" of persons and social groups and whole nations who ought properly to be standing on their feet. To be healthy and to live is to stand.

And the honest human being who would rather stand than lie must surely hail as particularly good news the imperative: Stand! Stand because you are able and are permitted to do so!

There can be no doubt that the New Testament στηκετε or στητε (cf. Eph. 5:14) is directly connected with the sound of the trumpet (1 Cor. 15:52) in the αναστασις νεκρων ("resurrection of the dead"). It commands both the later standing which the Christian is allowed and commanded in and with the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the preliminary standing which he is allowed and commanded in anticipation of his own resurrection. This is commanded because it is permitted. It is a liberation and loosing because it comes to him as an alien and imperious law. It is a genuine consolation because it is so diametrically opposed to the foolish wishes of the old man. These terms, then, do not give us any grounds for supposing that the Law can be dissevered from the Gospel, or that it can be explained and proclaimed with clarity and power unless it is interpreted on the basis of the Gospel.

What makes the demand so majestic and unconditional when we are told to "abide" and "stand" is not in the first instance that God wills or does not will something of us, but primarily that God is for us and not against us.

I believe that the Son of Godthrough his Spirit and Word,out of the entire human race,from the beginning of the world to its end,gathers, protects, and preserves for himselfa community chosen for eternal lifeand united in true faith.And of this community I am and always will bea living member.

Source: Heidelberg Catechism, 1563, translation authorized by the Christian Reformed Church in North America.

Saints by calling must have a visible political union among themselves, or else they are not yet a particular church, as those similitudes hold forth, which the Scripture makes use of to show the nature of particular churches; as a body, a building, house, hands, eyes, feet and other members, must be united, or else (remaining separate) are not a body. Stones, timber, though squared, hewn and polished, are not a house, until they are compacted and united; so saints or believers in judgment of charity, are not a church unless orderly knit together.

It is therefore decreed when we deal with God that we must stand free, and let goods, honor, right, wrong, and everything go that we have; and we will not be excused when we say: I am right, therefore I will not suffer anyone to do me wrong, as God requires that we should renounce all our rights and forgive our neighbor.

Thus your goods are no longer your own, but your neighbor's. God could indeed have kept his own, for he owed you nothing. Yet he gives himself wholly to you, becomes your gracious Lord, is kind to you, and serves you with all his goods, and what he has is all yours. Why then will you not do likewise? Hence, if you wish to be in his kingdom you must do as he does, but if you want to remain in the kingdom of the world, you will not enter his kingdom.

Those who do not prove their faith by their works of love are servants who want others to forgive them, but do not forgive their neighbor, nor yield their rights: therefore it will be with them as with this servant. Then God will summon them to appear before him at the Last Judgment and accuse them of these things and say: When you were hungry, thirsty and afflicted, I helped you; when you lay in sins I had compassion on you and forgave the debt; therefore you must also now pay your debt.

Forgiveness of sin ... is the whole kingdom of Christ, which lasts forever without end. For as the sun shines and gives no less light though I close my eyes, so this mercy seat or forgiveness of sins stands forever, though I fall. And as I see the sun again as soon as I open my eyes, so I have the forgiveness of sins again when I look up and again come to Christ. Therefore we must not make forgiveness so narrow, as the fools dream.

Source: "Sermon for the 22nd Sunday after Trinity," from Sermons of Martin Luther, v. 5, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

Third Way

In the Christian and Jewish communities, the culture war over homosexuality is polarized between "prohibitionist" and "liberationist" modes of reading scripture
and tradition. Is there a "third way?" Here is a selection of straight and gay thinkers who are part of a new movement in traditional religion.